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It is a profoundly difficult situation to manage, because of course if the DPRK is utterly destroyed then they lose their border which currently has over 15 mil

It is a profoundly difficult situation to manage, because of course if the DPRK is utterly destroyed then they lose their border which currently has over 15 million ethnic North Koreans living it. To say the Chinese central authorities are primarily concerned with central governmental control would be an understatement. If the DPRK isn’t destroyed, but occupied by South Korea/United States that would be almost as bad or maybe even worse. Pretty much the last thing they want is to be completely surrounded by us. They feel they have to play this very specific game in which the DPRK is maintained as a credible threat, but not so immidiate a threat that anyone just crushes them including the Chinese themselves. All of this in the context in which the North Koreans don’t particularly like or respect the Chinese and vice versa. I can’t believe that this balancing act will work forever.

yladiz 9y ago
The US doesn’t surround China at all. The only possible highly US friendly border would be a unified Korea, and while some other countries have diplomatic ties to the US they are not strong allies, for example some post Soviet counties like Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Also there aren’t really ‘ethnic North Koreans’, just ethnic Koreans. The border doesn’t affect the ethnicity in that way, because if anyone from North or South Korea did an ancestry test it would just say ‘Korean’ or ‘Korean peninsula’.
- samstave 9y ago
  Naive question: If shit went down with DPRK and the US, wouldn't china aggressively go after their other interests: Taiwan and Hong Kong with an iron fist, putting the US at a stalemate because now china controls 90% of the worlds information technology manufacturing capacity - this the US is fucked and would never start to attack troops in Taiwan and Hong Kong else literally kill the entire worlds non-Agra infra? So, with the ineptitude of trump, if I were playing Risk, and I were China, I'd play that card immediately. Just invade Taiwan and HK with massive troops, but do it as a peaceful occupation, and just take control of all banking and manufacture outbound and then the US would just have to say "darnit, what do you want" and the tides of the next century flip to China's favor. Conspiracy theory time: This is one of the reasons the US heavily funds MIC tech from Israel, the tech innovation coming from there with the subsidies and the closeness are massive - and they aren't china... so they have been focusing on exact and precise cyber weapons instead of massive production volume. If the "weapon" is a small scale team of cyber warfare experts with incredible tools built with unlimited funding, and they don't even sit in Israel - then taking them out will be much harder. As opposed to bombing a plastic widget factory in china... Heck. - they are prolly on a secret USs Jimmy carter sister sub with undersea vampire taps already... We have a strategic reserve of oil, I'm sure we have a strategic reserve of Silicon Valley components which were made in china to keep up various operations..
  - adventured 9y ago
    > now china controls 90% of the worlds information technology manufacturing capacity - this the US is fucked and would never start to attack troops in Taiwan and Hong Kong else literally kill the entire worlds non-Agra infra? Your scenario is pretty absurd considering history. If it were necessary, the US could build a hundred plus factories in the next year to churn out whatever IT technology was needed for its domestic well-being (in an extreme scenario where it was literally cut off). The US has hundreds of leading tech companies with the specialized knowledge required to do so, and a long history of pulling off incredible feats of industry when pressed to do so. It has an existing massive manufacturing capacity (China only passed the US in manufacturing output in 2011-2012), that comes in all shapes and sizes. The US also has the banks, private capital, public capital markets, entrepreneurs, thousands of technology companies (including most of the largest tech companies on the planet), accumulated decades of IT knowledge among the laborforce, the universities (R&D, science capability, tech labs, whatever the US could possibly need), a huge tech labor pool, any commodities needed, and the global reserve currency - all of which would be put to use. The US can marshal its vast resources when required, it has proven that repeatedly.
    - samstave 9y ago
      Your answer sounds good on official US paper... but this isnt WWII - and China has a billion potential slaves to do whatever it wants. The US doesnt have those potential slaves... I know that yours is likely the accepted scenario to the US government, but I look around at my economy in San Francisco - every single object within 5 miles of me has been at least partially made in China. With a very small exception to certain things. Sure, we can locally source our artisan recovery with organic planks, but if you're expecting the US to instantly turn out massive scale of anything other than food, I dont think it will happen. Now, thats not to say we dont have incredible allies who can produce a massive amount of components and materials needed - but Target and Walmart are going to be empty in weeks. All laptops and cellphones stop flowing into the US. Server and networking components that arent made in china, but are required for final assembly are dead. Christ, recall the Tsunami knocking out global hard-drive supplies? Yeah, you're comment is just as absurdly inflated.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I agree with you on literally all points, but critically the PRC does not. As for ethnicity, I agree as well, but the North doesn’t really. I’d strongly recommend The Cleanest Race by Brian Reynolds-

yladiz 9y ago

The US doesn’t surround China at all. The only possible highly US friendly border would be a unified Korea, and while some other countries have diplomatic ties to the US they are not strong allies, for example some post Soviet counties like Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Also there aren’t really ‘ethnic North Koreans’, just ethnic Koreans. The border doesn’t affect the ethnicity in that way, because if anyone from North or South Korea did an ancestry test it would just say ‘Korean’ or ‘Korean peninsula’.

samstave 9y ago
Naive question: If shit went down with DPRK and the US, wouldn't china aggressively go after their other interests: Taiwan and Hong Kong with an iron fist, putting the US at a stalemate because now china controls 90% of the worlds information technology manufacturing capacity - this the US is fucked and would never start to attack troops in Taiwan and Hong Kong else literally kill the entire worlds non-Agra infra? So, with the ineptitude of trump, if I were playing Risk, and I were China, I'd play that card immediately. Just invade Taiwan and HK with massive troops, but do it as a peaceful occupation, and just take control of all banking and manufacture outbound and then the US would just have to say "darnit, what do you want" and the tides of the next century flip to China's favor. Conspiracy theory time: This is one of the reasons the US heavily funds MIC tech from Israel, the tech innovation coming from there with the subsidies and the closeness are massive - and they aren't china... so they have been focusing on exact and precise cyber weapons instead of massive production volume. If the "weapon" is a small scale team of cyber warfare experts with incredible tools built with unlimited funding, and they don't even sit in Israel - then taking them out will be much harder. As opposed to bombing a plastic widget factory in china... Heck. - they are prolly on a secret USs Jimmy carter sister sub with undersea vampire taps already... We have a strategic reserve of oil, I'm sure we have a strategic reserve of Silicon Valley components which were made in china to keep up various operations..
- adventured 9y ago
  > now china controls 90% of the worlds information technology manufacturing capacity - this the US is fucked and would never start to attack troops in Taiwan and Hong Kong else literally kill the entire worlds non-Agra infra? Your scenario is pretty absurd considering history. If it were necessary, the US could build a hundred plus factories in the next year to churn out whatever IT technology was needed for its domestic well-being (in an extreme scenario where it was literally cut off). The US has hundreds of leading tech companies with the specialized knowledge required to do so, and a long history of pulling off incredible feats of industry when pressed to do so. It has an existing massive manufacturing capacity (China only passed the US in manufacturing output in 2011-2012), that comes in all shapes and sizes. The US also has the banks, private capital, public capital markets, entrepreneurs, thousands of technology companies (including most of the largest tech companies on the planet), accumulated decades of IT knowledge among the laborforce, the universities (R&D, science capability, tech labs, whatever the US could possibly need), a huge tech labor pool, any commodities needed, and the global reserve currency - all of which would be put to use. The US can marshal its vast resources when required, it has proven that repeatedly.
  - samstave 9y ago
    Your answer sounds good on official US paper... but this isnt WWII - and China has a billion potential slaves to do whatever it wants. The US doesnt have those potential slaves... I know that yours is likely the accepted scenario to the US government, but I look around at my economy in San Francisco - every single object within 5 miles of me has been at least partially made in China. With a very small exception to certain things. Sure, we can locally source our artisan recovery with organic planks, but if you're expecting the US to instantly turn out massive scale of anything other than food, I dont think it will happen. Now, thats not to say we dont have incredible allies who can produce a massive amount of components and materials needed - but Target and Walmart are going to be empty in weeks. All laptops and cellphones stop flowing into the US. Server and networking components that arent made in china, but are required for final assembly are dead. Christ, recall the Tsunami knocking out global hard-drive supplies? Yeah, you're comment is just as absurdly inflated.
QAPereo 9y ago
I agree with you on literally all points, but critically the PRC does not. As for ethnicity, I agree as well, but the North doesn’t really. I’d strongly recommend The Cleanest Race by Brian Reynolds-